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32 PalletCentral • September-October 2021 palletcentral.com Adele L. Abrams is an attorney and safety professional who represents companies in litigation with OSHA and also provides safety training and consultation. The Law Office of Adele L. Abrams PC has three offices: Beltsville, MD; Denver, CO; and Charleston, WV. She may be reached at www.safety-law.com or 301-595-3520. respiratory protection. One of the biggest potential gaps involves OSHA's hazard communication standard, and host employers must ensure that temporary workers are trained on the chemical hazards and PPE requirements for the products they will use on the job, and how to gain access to safety data sheets, especially if they are kept on a computer that is password protected. 5. OSHA advises staffing agencies to maintain contact with workers, and do spot visits where possible (e.g., when distributing paychecks) to verify that the host employer is fulfilling its responsibilities for a safe and healthful workplace. What about COVID-19? Given the continued spread, and the vagaries of employer policies on the subject, vaccination requirements for temporary workers, worker screening, and any mandates for face coverings, must be discussed between the host and the agency in advance, with an eye toward constantly evolving federal OSHA guidance (and state requirements that may be more stringent). In addition, both parties need to align how they will inform the other of any positive test status and the need for quarantining (as well as the issue of how temps will be compensated while quarantining if infected at the host employer's worksite). Finally, temporary workers are also covered under OSHA's whistleblower protections, and if they are removed from a worksite by the host because they expressed a concern about COVID-19 transmission or other safety issues, this could be viewed as a violation of their rights and the host can be prosecuted even though the worker is not directly employed by them. If the staffing agency refuses to reassign the worker based on their protected safety activity, the agency can be prosecuted as well. As OSHA puts it: "Whether temporary or permanent, all workers always have a right to a safe and healthy workplace." "Whether temporary or permanent, all workers always have a right to a safe and healthy workplace."

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